4 Incredible Motivational Moments From Million Dollar Baby

Million Dollar Baby, the movie that stole our hearts as we watched the rags to riches, heart wrenching journey of Maggie, the unlikely underdog turned hero of a grungy boxing gym and underrated, past-his-prime boxing coach.

A plethora of profound words to-live-by and life altering dialogue wash over me as I watch in awe of this woman’s determination, drive and unwillingness to hear “No” or “You Can’t”. But the one line that stayed with me, for years to come, that has popped into my mind all along my short path of life was this; “sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step back… But step back too far and you ain’t fighting at all.”

Frankie (Maggie’s trainer played by the legendary Clint Eastwood) is talking about her form, her style. But from the moment it rang in my ears, I heard the depth of that statement, it imprinted on my soul and to this day has never left me.

How often is it that we’re so entwined in a situation, in a problem, that all we seem to be doing is treading water. I like to call it the slump, the trough, the stagnation. Now, there is no one that believes more in the trends of life. The upswing and the downswing. The cycle. Sometimes it’s your turn to struggle and claw your way through an era, and sometimes it’s your turn to bask in the glory of the moment. But that line, it has a strange way of lightly tapping me on the shoulder in the middle of my greatest battles, my cyclical thriller in Manila. (Yes, I’ve fought my fair share of Frazier’s, so have you, don’t discredit yourself.)

1. Own your weakness, own your strengths

“Sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step back…” for me, this speaks to the art of detaching, for me specifically, this speaks to emotion. So often I cloud myself with emotion, blame it on any which aspect you like, I’m a Gemini, I’m an only child, I’m a woman, call it how you like it, none of the above offends me, and it shouldn’t offend you either. Understand yourself.

Understand the way you tick, the way you work, when you feel that wave of emotion, own it, label it, indulge and experiment with it. Assess what it helps you create, assess the damage it does if you let it be free, harness it and channel it. Be kind to yourself.

As humans we have this indescribable beauty within us that comes from being so imperfect, and having the ability to acknowledge that. So often the clarity we so desire, that we are so thirsty for, comes from detaching ourselves. It comes from decelerating the panic, zooming out.

Taking that one step back to regain our footing, regain our focus and deliver that knock-out punch, that winning number, the move that brings the crowd to their feet in awe and appreciation of you and your efforts.

“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one” – Bruce Lee

2. Don’t step back too far

However, there’s always a “but”. There is a balance to be kept, and our beloved Frankie, Clint Eastwood’s character, brings it home with “But step back too far and you ain’t fighting at all.”

It’s a warning and it’s applicable to every aspect of our lives. Step back too far, and you aren’t even in the fight any longer. Remove yourself too far, cut yourself off, bottle yourself up, and you’re no longer competing. You’re no longer in the game. You aint fighting at all.

It speaks to spectatorizing yourself (yup, I made it up, give it a minute it will catch on). It speaks to side lining yourself. Again I say, be kind to yourself, we are such gentle souls, so delicate, we are so soft and so in need of love and guidance. When there is no one around to applaud for you, applaud yourself.

3. Acknowledge even the smallest victory

I once heard of a primary school teacher who was teaching her little ones to read. One day during class she requested that little Johnny get up and spell the word “cat” on the board. Johnny eagerly got up, ran to the board and in shaky, untrained handwriting Johnny wrote K-O-T. Instead of correcting Johnny straight away, the teacher ran up to Johnny and said “well done Johnny, you got the T correct. Now let us try to get the rest of the letters that you’re missing.”

Be gentle, do not jump to what is wrong first. Give yourself credit where credit is due. Don’t work on yourself because you hate what you are, or what you see. Don’t go into that gym despising your body, it’s been so good to you for this long, after everything you’ve put it through.

Be gentle with your mind and thoughts when learning something new, your brain does a million things at once, over and over, every single day, appreciate yourself. But do not step so far back that you no longer fight. So far back that you no longer compete.

“It’s the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you” – Eddie Scrap

4. Show up on the night

Challenge yourself and change yourself, drive yourself to be what you have always wanted to be, how you’ve always wanted to be. Don’t make yourself a spectator of your own life. You are stronger and more resilient than you could possibly fathom. There is complete freedom at the end of the road of endurance, at the edge of the limits we set ourselves. But we should aim to always discover this positively.

Take that step back in today’s boxing ring, assess your situation, physically, mentally, emotionally… focus… distribute your weight evenly, and deliver life that winning shot.But don’t forget the number one rule; Protect yourself at all times.

Thank you for reading my article! I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below!

Samantha is a 25 year old South African, lover of all things, employed as a Business Analyst with an Honours degree in Strategic Management, a vocal performers degree as well as being a qualified pilates teacher, an avid fitness fanatic and dancer at the core. Sam has travelled often and believes that in her short 25 years on this earth she has lived 100 different lives, and hopes to live hundreds more.

9 Comments

Hi Samantha your post is amazing! 🙂
Million Dollar Baby is a great movie with incredible lessons of life and great idea about motivation and strenght of character.
Thank u. I have a little blog in Italy that talks about these topics and i love this kind of topics.
Thank u so much. 🙂
Have a Great Day.

Knowing who you are can really help you improve all areas of your life and will definitely help you to be happier. So many people go around in life like zombies, living without meaning because they don’t know who they truly are, they fail because they dont know their own strengths and weaknesses, and they are not happy because they dont know what they truly want. Living the life you want means that you have to asses yourself and taking a step back to find yourself and your strength.

Great article and so right in point. I am often guilty of beating myself up. In doing Sales Enablement, I can win deals for people, all I can do is offer Coaching advice along the way. Thanks for a great post!

Firstly, I once got a chance to meet Clint Eastwood. What I could see in his eyes was a man full of compassion and love of the good guy or gal. I now see that reflected in his films. In the above mentioned movie let me say it resonated with me deeply. For it was when she was down she taught him his greatest lesson. She truly won, sadly after she passed. One heck of a tough gal! Sadly a lot of tough gals give up and we “throw in the towel.” Now, I’ve learned to love myself more and love the fight of my life. Who knows maybe I’m the tough massage therapist chick someone needs today!?

Such an interesting view on life and its ups and downs ,its not all of us who can live life to these rules but great to know you can refer to an article like yours Sam and take a step back and look at life and see how it is treating you.
Well done proud of you.
Alan

Comfort Vs Courage: It’s Easier To Stay In Bed Than Face Your Goals.

On paper, your goals seem like a must. You want that successful business, you want to inspire others, you want to get on stage and wow the audience or you might even want to write a New York Times Best Selling Book.

Most of us do none of this. We set our goals like the ones mentioned and then consistently fall short.

Then there are the outliers who do achieve these audacious goals.

An example of an outlier I learned last week was a lady named Michaela Alexis. Like me, she’s crippled with a fear of public speaking. What inspired me was that recently she spoke in front of thousands of people.

The last time she tried this, she failed badly and forgot what she was going to say. The speech she gave was mostly a wash of F ups and an overwhelming sense of fear.

As Michaela faced the stage again, with Gary Vaynerchuk speaking after her, she was crippled by her fear. Despite her fear she went out on the stage and gave her talk to thousands of people.

She even filmed how nervous she was before the event. You can tell that as easy as she made it look, the behind the scenes showed the truth: she was scared out of her mind and full of fear.

On the day of her talk, she nearly stayed in bed and didn’t achieve her primary goal of becoming great at public speaking.

The choice is ours.

“We can either stay in bed where it’s comfortable, warm and there are no critics to judge us, or we can face the world and push beyond our limits”

Each of us has this same choice and most of us make the wrong one or we tell ourselves “I’ll start tomorrow.”

Tomorrow never comes. We keep dreaming about our goals but we rarely try to execute on them. Now I’m not saying we always hide from these big scary goals, but what I’ve experienced is we don’t execute on our goals enough.

Doing something like public speaking once a year or twice a year won’t crank up the dial enough on your results.

Michaela has shown that the fastest way to achieve our big goals is to be relentless. She’s done that by going on stage several times in a short-period.

Most of all, it takes courage.

“You stay in your warm bed and never execute because you lack courage”

We’re not born with courage though. We develop it.

Courage is a musclethat must be exercised every week. Doing the reps any less than a weekly commitment will see your vision, and ultimately your goals, become too far into the distance. To stay on the right track, you’ve got to gain leverage on yourself.

What I’ve learned is that courage is really nothing more than doing the small tasks that form part of your goals. In other words, courage is taking action without being attached to the result.

The moment you focus too hard on the result you’re trying to achieve, you get lost in your own thoughts. Gaining leverage on yourself and having courage starts with scheduling tasks in your calendar. Once something is locked in your calendar, you gain leverage on yourself.

None of us want to let others down and by putting things in your calendar, you make time for being courageous. The good news is you can always retreat to your bed if on the day of taking action you can’t proceed.

What I’ve found though is that you won’t. Once it’s locked in, there’s a very good chance you’re going to execute. Having things in your diary helps to activate your auto-pilot mode. The moment you can use autopilot mode when you require courage is when your circumstances start to change.

Rising up to the challenge.

After moments of courage, the progress you see towards your goals will make it all worth it. Seeing Michaela Alexis witness this firsthand, and sharing it on LinkedIn after her speech last week, made that very idea sink in.

The difference between staying in bed – your metaphorical comfort zone – and crushing your goals is rising up to the challenge in front of you. It’s looking the audience in the eye and telling them you got this. You were born to do this!

All of us get to face these challenges and many of us opt out. Rising up is about finding the hidden courage within yourself to take action when logically it doesn’t make sense.

It’s about using the nerves you’re feeling towards your advantage. It’s about taking your adversities and turning them into weapons of mass destruction.

Final Thought.

Seeing Michaela Alexis look physically sick, nervous, fearful and like she was about to die taught me so much. It’s not often that we get to lift the cover on someone like her who has so much influence, to see what actual courage looks like. The behind the scenes look at all the people you admire will show several similarities to Michaela.

Everything looks easy on video and what you don’t see is the courage that success takes. Each of us is burdened with our own flavor of challenges and overcoming them using courage is how we rise up, get what we want, and cross off those goals that give meaning to our lives.

Purpose, vision, entrepreneurship, personal development and anything else you can think of means nothing unless you have the courage to execute.

You can hide in the comfort of your bed or get out there and dance in front of dragons while the tree’s around you burn bright, and your mind is silenced from all the overthinking.

The choice is yours.

Will you choose courage or comfort?

If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net

This Is What You Should Do When Your Motivation Is Gone

We both know how life feels when you’re motivated, you feel unstoppable, like you can do anything and make anything happen. What makes you feel motivated when you start something isn’t always the same thing that will motivate you in the future. The problem is when people, who don’t read blogs like this, end up just accepting a lack of motivation as their reality and using it as their EXCUSE to avoid taking action and going after their destiny.

If following your destiny and fulfilling your purpose was easy, everyone would do it, however it takes a different type of person to pursue their destiny, a person that reads blogs like this…

This blog is for 2 types of people:

1. You are feeling motivated but want to make sure you keep the consistency of your results.

2. You are feeling a lack of motivation and you know that maintaining your drive will take your life to the next level.

The tools I’m going to share with you are what I have used to create an amazing relationship with my wife, build a 7 figure business, and transform my health, from being 60 lbs overweight to having abs for 8 years straight. Implementing these actions and habits into your life with cultivate success in your life without making you feel like you’re using all your will power, all the time. I believe commitment and motivation go hand in hand. Many people are motivated but they aren’t committed to their dreams, this is why they lack results. Take a Navy Seal for example, he can show up to day 1 of training super motivated, but what happens when he’s weeks deep into the most rigorous exercises?

Is it only the motivated ones that continue on or is it the ones who are committed?

You got it, the committed. But then what happens shortly after they graduate and get their trident?

The feeling of motivation comes back with a greater measure because they did it, they experienced that first taste of success as a result of their commitment. Motivation is a great tool. If we had to live being committed to our cause and purpose without motivation we wouldn’t have as much passion. Using these two tools together is how the most successful people experience the compounding effect of motivation. They make a decision when they are motivated and chose to stay committed to what their decision. Commitment is doing what you said you were going to do, long after the feeling has passed.

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

Commitment is an unbreakable promise and choice you make, it is 100% up to you, whether you feel like it tomorrow or not. Commitment is giving the decisions you make today a long standing integrity, it’s relying on that commitment to withstand even when you want to take a break or feel overwhelmed, it’s pushing through.

Sometimes it’s going back into your past and seeing what worked before. You can use previous motivation as an anchor, pulling yourself back into that frame of mind at any time. Being able to control your emotions and mindset is a huge key to being successful.

It’s important to know what triggers your motivation and what it takes get you back into that state of mind. An example is similar to me when I go golfing, if I’m at the driving range practicing sometimes I will get lazy and my hits will get worse and worse. But when I go out on the course, when I know it counts, I feel myself get into the zone where I have a routine that I aim to execute.

I can access that “zone” on the range as well and anchor that feeling for whenever I need it. Remember when you felt motivated or full of energy, what can you do to bring back that feeling? How can you anchor yourself so that when you think of it, all your motivation comes back and pulls you into the zone?

You adapt to your environment

The #1 thing lacking for most people is in their environment. You will always adapt to your environment and you will always be a product of your five closest friends. Think about someone who gets into the gym every day. They workout because their actions and environment gives them the opportunity to be in changes of themselves. Now apply it to yourself, if you are in an environment without any pressure or opportunities, it’s very likely that will affect your motivation.

Look at the five people closest to you. What is their motivation level? What is their success level in health, business and relationships? It’s like a black hole sucking you in, it could be extremely positive or detrimental to your success. You are either dragging dead weight, an equivalent of the toxicity surrounding you or you’re being dragged and catapulted into success, prompted to pursue your destiny by the people who surround you.

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Look at network marketing companies, they know that if they create local, regional, and national events they can place people in an environment to change and learn, and there are often enough events that the people showing up to all of them will stay consistent and make themselves and the company profitable.

What are some things you do when you’ve lost motivation? Comment below!

Embrace The Passion Of The Moment: Here’s How.

I’m sitting here on a Saturday afternoon thinking about my next career move. There are two companies I’m in love with and I’ve just had a spark of inspiration.

I’m dealing with a recruiter who knows both of them. Instead of waiting until Monday morning to send him a note about my passion for these two companies, I decided f*ck it; I’m going to embrace the passion I have right now.

Rather than write these words and not follow them myself, I decided to write a letter to the recruiter.

I told him “Person X should definitely have coffee with me.”

I laid out the ten reasons why I can transform their business and linked it back to my passion (blogging).

I ended the email with “Can you feel my passion and energy?”

How bad do you want it?

In these moments of passion, you have to ask yourself “How bad do you want it?”

Are you going to sit on your ass and do nothing or are you going to create opportunity?

My career is down the toilet and only I can fix this challenge. Blaming, crying and complaining will not fix the issue. The passion of the current moment that I get from time to time will.

The same is true for you. If you want something, you have to not only execute but deliver passion too. Think clearly about who can help you and then make the connection.

Don’t be selfish either.

Passion is great but if you use it to fulfill your own selfish desires, then you’ll also fail. In my email, to the recruiter, I told him to tell the two prospective companies that I will give them my advice and strategy for free even if they don’t decide to hire me.

I put it all on the line and backed up my claims and promises with evidence.

“Coming from a place of humbleness and being open to giving stuff away for free is how you show people you care”

Combine this hack with passion, and you have a powerful cocktail of whoop ass that can help you reach your goals – mine is changing my career.

People are attracted to your passion and it’s what sells.

Every entrepreneur I have met who has nailed a pitch has used passion. They’ve made the audience feel instead of trying to inform them.

We make decisions based on emotion, not logic (you know this already) and so when you use passion, you speak to the one thing they’re looking for but are never going to tell you: emotion.

When I feel someone’s passion, I get goosebumps down my spine and I almost always say yes when this happens.

Let’s add fear.

When you lay it all on the line, you’ll often get a sharp dose of fear. This fear can be combined with passion to achieve almost any result. For example, when I do public speaking, I’m almost always a bit nervous. Fear helps give me energy and then I use passion to deliver my message.

By using mostly passion to speak in front of an audience, I don’t need to think too much about notes because my passions (like social media) are engrained in my memory.

Fear is like a strong dose of coffee for me and it makes me alert to the audiences needs and the way they feel.

The single biggest hack.

If you’re having a moment of passion like I just did, then you must use it.

“Moments of passion are typically followed by deep states of “flow” and so you can deliver big results during this time without too much effort”

Moments of passion should never be ignored. Stop everything when you get one and use audio, video or words to capture the message. I’ve recently suffered a few issues with memory thanks to my evil friend mercury which has been discovered in my blood at very high levels.

Because my memory sucks, I’ve been forced to write things down and take action right away otherwise I forget whatever it is that I was going to do.

This may seem like a weakness – not for long as I’m cleaning out the mercury right now – but it’s actually one of my superpowers.

A trigger for a moment of passion is when you get pissed off. For example, if you go to the supermarket today and you’re pissed off by all the products that are loaded with sugar, use your passion to do something about it or capture your thoughts.

Many people find me inspiring and I believe that’s because I capture passion, bottle it up, and deliver it to your phone or computer via blog posts. All I am really doing is capturing moments of passion. I’m looking for things in my internal and external world that will help you.

The number one thing I’m trying to do is use my passion to help you take action. I want you to execute above everything else on your big goals.

Final thought.

I have no idea whether this email to the recruiter will work. Maybe he will read it and think “Geez this Tim guy is so lame. Who’d write such a ridiculous email and actually hit send?”

The thing is I don’t care and you shouldn’t either. Some people are going to get your passion and others are going to think you’re nuts. The ones that think you’re nuts were never going to help you anyway so all you have done is self-select the people that CAN help.

I’m over caring what people think and I’m never going to hide my passion. I hid my passion for years and that got me nowhere. Start swinging the axe at the tree and don’t worry if you miss.

Fingers crossed that this email translates otherwise at least I’ve got a cool story to tell, right?

Hell yeah, amigo!

Embrace your passion right now!

If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net

I live in a country where there is endless opportunity, no war, hardly any violence, beautiful beaches and really healthy food.

Sometimes we need to take a long hard look at ourselves and realize what we have instead of being lost in thoughts of what we don’t have.

Let’s use my own situation to analyze what I have. I have:

– Some really good storytelling skills
– Great insight into social media
– Excellent sales skills
– A history of successful entrepreneurship
– An income generating side business
– Some evolving public speaking skills
– Phenomenal health

Now think about your own situation. When you think long and hard, what do you have?

We are actually very lucky.

Yes, you’ve heard it before but I’m going to say it again. The odds of you being born are massively not in your favor. Here’s the fact from my friend Google:

“The probability of you existing at all comes out to 1 in 10 2,685,000”

Just by being born you are already lucky. There’s no need to feel sorry for yourself because you’ve already won.

When you go through a rough time like I am with my career right now, the way you maintain your mindset is realizing how lucky you are.

All of us are already lucky and by remembering that in the tough times, it gives us the energy to stop ourselves from giving it all up and throwing in the towel.

During moments of chaos, you must remember how lucky you already are.

Someone may not see your talent but that doesn’t mean you’re not lucky.

That’s what I am telling myself today. People in my career right now are not seeing my real talent but that doesn’t mean I don’t have any or that I’m not lucky to be alive.

Sometimes the reality is the opposite of what you think. Sometimes the fact someone can’t see your talent has more to do with their weaknesses. Maybe that person who doesn’t believe in you is just very average and hasn’t developed any greatness of their own (yet).

Rejection often has nothing to do with you at all.

That’s why right now I’m not personally having a bar of it. I encourage you to say the following lines to yourself:

“I can be extraordinary regardless of outside opinions.”
“I will not let rejection blind me from my true talents.”
“Everything happens for a reason and this moment will appear lucky later on.”

The concept of luck.

My idea of luck is pretty extreme. I believe that the more good you do and the more you help others, the luckier you get. Becoming lucky has nothing to do with luck at all.

You can generate perceived luck by following this formula.

You can’t even start though unless you begin to see you’re lucky first.

“That’s because scarcity blinds you from the abundance that each of us has access to”

Put things into perspective.

Things could be tough right now but they could be even worse. That very idea should cheer you up right now.

There are highs and lows in our career and unless you can embrace both sides of this reality, you’ll get lost in a negative reality that forces you to think you’re not already lucky.

I’m guilty of that too – especially today.

What we must remember is so cliché: we have air in our lungs and are alive. This means we are already luckier than most things that exist in the universe.

Focus on how you can get to where you want to go rather than being lost in what you’re lacking. By doing this, you’ll realize how lucky you have it.

The job loss, divorce, sickness, startup failure – whatever – will serve you so much more when you realize how lucky you are with or without those challenges.

If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net

Trying to Build Charisma? Pay Attention to How You Speak

Have you ever listened to yourself talking and said how on earth do I sound that terrible? Most of us don`t realize they have voice issues until we accidentally listen to our voice or seek professional help. But the truth is, 38 percent of your charisma comes from the way you talk.(more…)

Marwan Jamal is a fitness and health blogger at healthline.com. He’s a great fan of the gym and a healthy diet. He follows the trends in fitness, gym, and healthy life and loves to share his knowledge through useful and informative articles.

9 Comments

Hi Samantha your post is amazing! 🙂
Million Dollar Baby is a great movie with incredible lessons of life and great idea about motivation and strenght of character.
Thank u. I have a little blog in Italy that talks about these topics and i love this kind of topics.
Thank u so much. 🙂
Have a Great Day.

Knowing who you are can really help you improve all areas of your life and will definitely help you to be happier. So many people go around in life like zombies, living without meaning because they don’t know who they truly are, they fail because they dont know their own strengths and weaknesses, and they are not happy because they dont know what they truly want. Living the life you want means that you have to asses yourself and taking a step back to find yourself and your strength.

Great article and so right in point. I am often guilty of beating myself up. In doing Sales Enablement, I can win deals for people, all I can do is offer Coaching advice along the way. Thanks for a great post!

Firstly, I once got a chance to meet Clint Eastwood. What I could see in his eyes was a man full of compassion and love of the good guy or gal. I now see that reflected in his films. In the above mentioned movie let me say it resonated with me deeply. For it was when she was down she taught him his greatest lesson. She truly won, sadly after she passed. One heck of a tough gal! Sadly a lot of tough gals give up and we “throw in the towel.” Now, I’ve learned to love myself more and love the fight of my life. Who knows maybe I’m the tough massage therapist chick someone needs today!?

Such an interesting view on life and its ups and downs ,its not all of us who can live life to these rules but great to know you can refer to an article like yours Sam and take a step back and look at life and see how it is treating you.
Well done proud of you.
Alan

Comfort Vs Courage: It’s Easier To Stay In Bed Than Face Your Goals.

On paper, your goals seem like a must. You want that successful business, you want to inspire others, you want to get on stage and wow the audience or you might even want to write a New York Times Best Selling Book.

Most of us do none of this. We set our goals like the ones mentioned and then consistently fall short.

Then there are the outliers who do achieve these audacious goals.

An example of an outlier I learned last week was a lady named Michaela Alexis. Like me, she’s crippled with a fear of public speaking. What inspired me was that recently she spoke in front of thousands of people.

The last time she tried this, she failed badly and forgot what she was going to say. The speech she gave was mostly a wash of F ups and an overwhelming sense of fear.

As Michaela faced the stage again, with Gary Vaynerchuk speaking after her, she was crippled by her fear. Despite her fear she went out on the stage and gave her talk to thousands of people.

She even filmed how nervous she was before the event. You can tell that as easy as she made it look, the behind the scenes showed the truth: she was scared out of her mind and full of fear.

On the day of her talk, she nearly stayed in bed and didn’t achieve her primary goal of becoming great at public speaking.

The choice is ours.

“We can either stay in bed where it’s comfortable, warm and there are no critics to judge us, or we can face the world and push beyond our limits”

Each of us has this same choice and most of us make the wrong one or we tell ourselves “I’ll start tomorrow.”

Tomorrow never comes. We keep dreaming about our goals but we rarely try to execute on them. Now I’m not saying we always hide from these big scary goals, but what I’ve experienced is we don’t execute on our goals enough.

Doing something like public speaking once a year or twice a year won’t crank up the dial enough on your results.

Michaela has shown that the fastest way to achieve our big goals is to be relentless. She’s done that by going on stage several times in a short-period.

Most of all, it takes courage.

“You stay in your warm bed and never execute because you lack courage”

We’re not born with courage though. We develop it.

Courage is a musclethat must be exercised every week. Doing the reps any less than a weekly commitment will see your vision, and ultimately your goals, become too far into the distance. To stay on the right track, you’ve got to gain leverage on yourself.

What I’ve learned is that courage is really nothing more than doing the small tasks that form part of your goals. In other words, courage is taking action without being attached to the result.

The moment you focus too hard on the result you’re trying to achieve, you get lost in your own thoughts. Gaining leverage on yourself and having courage starts with scheduling tasks in your calendar. Once something is locked in your calendar, you gain leverage on yourself.

None of us want to let others down and by putting things in your calendar, you make time for being courageous. The good news is you can always retreat to your bed if on the day of taking action you can’t proceed.

What I’ve found though is that you won’t. Once it’s locked in, there’s a very good chance you’re going to execute. Having things in your diary helps to activate your auto-pilot mode. The moment you can use autopilot mode when you require courage is when your circumstances start to change.

Rising up to the challenge.

After moments of courage, the progress you see towards your goals will make it all worth it. Seeing Michaela Alexis witness this firsthand, and sharing it on LinkedIn after her speech last week, made that very idea sink in.

The difference between staying in bed – your metaphorical comfort zone – and crushing your goals is rising up to the challenge in front of you. It’s looking the audience in the eye and telling them you got this. You were born to do this!

All of us get to face these challenges and many of us opt out. Rising up is about finding the hidden courage within yourself to take action when logically it doesn’t make sense.

It’s about using the nerves you’re feeling towards your advantage. It’s about taking your adversities and turning them into weapons of mass destruction.

Final Thought.

Seeing Michaela Alexis look physically sick, nervous, fearful and like she was about to die taught me so much. It’s not often that we get to lift the cover on someone like her who has so much influence, to see what actual courage looks like. The behind the scenes look at all the people you admire will show several similarities to Michaela.

Everything looks easy on video and what you don’t see is the courage that success takes. Each of us is burdened with our own flavor of challenges and overcoming them using courage is how we rise up, get what we want, and cross off those goals that give meaning to our lives.

Purpose, vision, entrepreneurship, personal development and anything else you can think of means nothing unless you have the courage to execute.

You can hide in the comfort of your bed or get out there and dance in front of dragons while the tree’s around you burn bright, and your mind is silenced from all the overthinking.

The choice is yours.

Will you choose courage or comfort?

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This Is What You Should Do When Your Motivation Is Gone

We both know how life feels when you’re motivated, you feel unstoppable, like you can do anything and make anything happen. What makes you feel motivated when you start something isn’t always the same thing that will motivate you in the future. The problem is when people, who don’t read blogs like this, end up just accepting a lack of motivation as their reality and using it as their EXCUSE to avoid taking action and going after their destiny.

If following your destiny and fulfilling your purpose was easy, everyone would do it, however it takes a different type of person to pursue their destiny, a person that reads blogs like this…

This blog is for 2 types of people:

1. You are feeling motivated but want to make sure you keep the consistency of your results.

2. You are feeling a lack of motivation and you know that maintaining your drive will take your life to the next level.

The tools I’m going to share with you are what I have used to create an amazing relationship with my wife, build a 7 figure business, and transform my health, from being 60 lbs overweight to having abs for 8 years straight. Implementing these actions and habits into your life with cultivate success in your life without making you feel like you’re using all your will power, all the time. I believe commitment and motivation go hand in hand. Many people are motivated but they aren’t committed to their dreams, this is why they lack results. Take a Navy Seal for example, he can show up to day 1 of training super motivated, but what happens when he’s weeks deep into the most rigorous exercises?

Is it only the motivated ones that continue on or is it the ones who are committed?

You got it, the committed. But then what happens shortly after they graduate and get their trident?

The feeling of motivation comes back with a greater measure because they did it, they experienced that first taste of success as a result of their commitment. Motivation is a great tool. If we had to live being committed to our cause and purpose without motivation we wouldn’t have as much passion. Using these two tools together is how the most successful people experience the compounding effect of motivation. They make a decision when they are motivated and chose to stay committed to what their decision. Commitment is doing what you said you were going to do, long after the feeling has passed.

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

Commitment is an unbreakable promise and choice you make, it is 100% up to you, whether you feel like it tomorrow or not. Commitment is giving the decisions you make today a long standing integrity, it’s relying on that commitment to withstand even when you want to take a break or feel overwhelmed, it’s pushing through.

Sometimes it’s going back into your past and seeing what worked before. You can use previous motivation as an anchor, pulling yourself back into that frame of mind at any time. Being able to control your emotions and mindset is a huge key to being successful.

It’s important to know what triggers your motivation and what it takes get you back into that state of mind. An example is similar to me when I go golfing, if I’m at the driving range practicing sometimes I will get lazy and my hits will get worse and worse. But when I go out on the course, when I know it counts, I feel myself get into the zone where I have a routine that I aim to execute.

I can access that “zone” on the range as well and anchor that feeling for whenever I need it. Remember when you felt motivated or full of energy, what can you do to bring back that feeling? How can you anchor yourself so that when you think of it, all your motivation comes back and pulls you into the zone?

You adapt to your environment

The #1 thing lacking for most people is in their environment. You will always adapt to your environment and you will always be a product of your five closest friends. Think about someone who gets into the gym every day. They workout because their actions and environment gives them the opportunity to be in changes of themselves. Now apply it to yourself, if you are in an environment without any pressure or opportunities, it’s very likely that will affect your motivation.

Look at the five people closest to you. What is their motivation level? What is their success level in health, business and relationships? It’s like a black hole sucking you in, it could be extremely positive or detrimental to your success. You are either dragging dead weight, an equivalent of the toxicity surrounding you or you’re being dragged and catapulted into success, prompted to pursue your destiny by the people who surround you.

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Look at network marketing companies, they know that if they create local, regional, and national events they can place people in an environment to change and learn, and there are often enough events that the people showing up to all of them will stay consistent and make themselves and the company profitable.

What are some things you do when you’ve lost motivation? Comment below!

Embrace The Passion Of The Moment: Here’s How.

I’m sitting here on a Saturday afternoon thinking about my next career move. There are two companies I’m in love with and I’ve just had a spark of inspiration.

I’m dealing with a recruiter who knows both of them. Instead of waiting until Monday morning to send him a note about my passion for these two companies, I decided f*ck it; I’m going to embrace the passion I have right now.

Rather than write these words and not follow them myself, I decided to write a letter to the recruiter.

I told him “Person X should definitely have coffee with me.”

I laid out the ten reasons why I can transform their business and linked it back to my passion (blogging).

I ended the email with “Can you feel my passion and energy?”

How bad do you want it?

In these moments of passion, you have to ask yourself “How bad do you want it?”

Are you going to sit on your ass and do nothing or are you going to create opportunity?

My career is down the toilet and only I can fix this challenge. Blaming, crying and complaining will not fix the issue. The passion of the current moment that I get from time to time will.

The same is true for you. If you want something, you have to not only execute but deliver passion too. Think clearly about who can help you and then make the connection.

Don’t be selfish either.

Passion is great but if you use it to fulfill your own selfish desires, then you’ll also fail. In my email, to the recruiter, I told him to tell the two prospective companies that I will give them my advice and strategy for free even if they don’t decide to hire me.

I put it all on the line and backed up my claims and promises with evidence.

“Coming from a place of humbleness and being open to giving stuff away for free is how you show people you care”

Combine this hack with passion, and you have a powerful cocktail of whoop ass that can help you reach your goals – mine is changing my career.

People are attracted to your passion and it’s what sells.

Every entrepreneur I have met who has nailed a pitch has used passion. They’ve made the audience feel instead of trying to inform them.

We make decisions based on emotion, not logic (you know this already) and so when you use passion, you speak to the one thing they’re looking for but are never going to tell you: emotion.

When I feel someone’s passion, I get goosebumps down my spine and I almost always say yes when this happens.

Let’s add fear.

When you lay it all on the line, you’ll often get a sharp dose of fear. This fear can be combined with passion to achieve almost any result. For example, when I do public speaking, I’m almost always a bit nervous. Fear helps give me energy and then I use passion to deliver my message.

By using mostly passion to speak in front of an audience, I don’t need to think too much about notes because my passions (like social media) are engrained in my memory.

Fear is like a strong dose of coffee for me and it makes me alert to the audiences needs and the way they feel.

The single biggest hack.

If you’re having a moment of passion like I just did, then you must use it.

“Moments of passion are typically followed by deep states of “flow” and so you can deliver big results during this time without too much effort”

Moments of passion should never be ignored. Stop everything when you get one and use audio, video or words to capture the message. I’ve recently suffered a few issues with memory thanks to my evil friend mercury which has been discovered in my blood at very high levels.

Because my memory sucks, I’ve been forced to write things down and take action right away otherwise I forget whatever it is that I was going to do.

This may seem like a weakness – not for long as I’m cleaning out the mercury right now – but it’s actually one of my superpowers.

A trigger for a moment of passion is when you get pissed off. For example, if you go to the supermarket today and you’re pissed off by all the products that are loaded with sugar, use your passion to do something about it or capture your thoughts.

Many people find me inspiring and I believe that’s because I capture passion, bottle it up, and deliver it to your phone or computer via blog posts. All I am really doing is capturing moments of passion. I’m looking for things in my internal and external world that will help you.

The number one thing I’m trying to do is use my passion to help you take action. I want you to execute above everything else on your big goals.

Final thought.

I have no idea whether this email to the recruiter will work. Maybe he will read it and think “Geez this Tim guy is so lame. Who’d write such a ridiculous email and actually hit send?”

The thing is I don’t care and you shouldn’t either. Some people are going to get your passion and others are going to think you’re nuts. The ones that think you’re nuts were never going to help you anyway so all you have done is self-select the people that CAN help.

I’m over caring what people think and I’m never going to hide my passion. I hid my passion for years and that got me nowhere. Start swinging the axe at the tree and don’t worry if you miss.

Fingers crossed that this email translates otherwise at least I’ve got a cool story to tell, right?

Hell yeah, amigo!

Embrace your passion right now!

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I live in a country where there is endless opportunity, no war, hardly any violence, beautiful beaches and really healthy food.

Sometimes we need to take a long hard look at ourselves and realize what we have instead of being lost in thoughts of what we don’t have.

Let’s use my own situation to analyze what I have. I have:

– Some really good storytelling skills
– Great insight into social media
– Excellent sales skills
– A history of successful entrepreneurship
– An income generating side business
– Some evolving public speaking skills
– Phenomenal health

Now think about your own situation. When you think long and hard, what do you have?

We are actually very lucky.

Yes, you’ve heard it before but I’m going to say it again. The odds of you being born are massively not in your favor. Here’s the fact from my friend Google:

“The probability of you existing at all comes out to 1 in 10 2,685,000”

Just by being born you are already lucky. There’s no need to feel sorry for yourself because you’ve already won.

When you go through a rough time like I am with my career right now, the way you maintain your mindset is realizing how lucky you are.

All of us are already lucky and by remembering that in the tough times, it gives us the energy to stop ourselves from giving it all up and throwing in the towel.

During moments of chaos, you must remember how lucky you already are.

Someone may not see your talent but that doesn’t mean you’re not lucky.

That’s what I am telling myself today. People in my career right now are not seeing my real talent but that doesn’t mean I don’t have any or that I’m not lucky to be alive.

Sometimes the reality is the opposite of what you think. Sometimes the fact someone can’t see your talent has more to do with their weaknesses. Maybe that person who doesn’t believe in you is just very average and hasn’t developed any greatness of their own (yet).

Rejection often has nothing to do with you at all.

That’s why right now I’m not personally having a bar of it. I encourage you to say the following lines to yourself:

“I can be extraordinary regardless of outside opinions.”
“I will not let rejection blind me from my true talents.”
“Everything happens for a reason and this moment will appear lucky later on.”

The concept of luck.

My idea of luck is pretty extreme. I believe that the more good you do and the more you help others, the luckier you get. Becoming lucky has nothing to do with luck at all.

You can generate perceived luck by following this formula.

You can’t even start though unless you begin to see you’re lucky first.

“That’s because scarcity blinds you from the abundance that each of us has access to”

Put things into perspective.

Things could be tough right now but they could be even worse. That very idea should cheer you up right now.

There are highs and lows in our career and unless you can embrace both sides of this reality, you’ll get lost in a negative reality that forces you to think you’re not already lucky.

I’m guilty of that too – especially today.

What we must remember is so cliché: we have air in our lungs and are alive. This means we are already luckier than most things that exist in the universe.

Focus on how you can get to where you want to go rather than being lost in what you’re lacking. By doing this, you’ll realize how lucky you have it.

The job loss, divorce, sickness, startup failure – whatever – will serve you so much more when you realize how lucky you are with or without those challenges.

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